[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0530":3},"MAY 30\r\nAnd no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth (Rev. 14:3).\r\nThere are songs which can only be learned in the valley. No art can teach them; no rules of voice can make them perfectly sung. Their\r\nmusic is in the heart They are songs of memory, of personal\r\nexperience. They bring out their burden from the shadow of the past-, they mount on the wings of yesterday.\r\nSt John says that even in Heaven there will be a song that can only be fully sung by the sons of earth-the strain of redemption.\r\nDoubtless it is a song of triumph, a hymn of victory to the Christ   who made us free. But the sense of triumph must come from the memory of the chain.\r\nNo angel, no archangel can sing it so sweetly as I can. To sing it  as I sing It they must pass through my exile, and this they cannot do. None can learn it but the children of the Cross.\r\nAnd so, my soul, thou art receiving a music lesson from thy Father. Thou art being educated for the choir invisible.\r\nThere are parts of the symphony that none can take but thee.\r\nThere are chords too minor for the angels. There may be heights in\r\nthe symphony which are beyond the scale-heights which angels alone can reach; but there are depths which belong to thee, and can only\r\nbe touched by thee.\r\nThy Father is training thee for the part the angels cannot\r\nand the school is sorrow. I have heard many say that He sends  son-ow to prove thee; nay, He sends sorrow to educate thee, to train thee for the choir invisible.\r\nIn the night He is preparing thy song. In the valley He is tuning\r\nthy voice. In the cloud He is deepening thy chords. In the rain He\r\nis sweetening thy melody. In the cold He is moulding thy\r\nexpression. In the transition from hope to fear He is perfecting thy lots.\r\nDespise not thy school of sorrow, 0 my soul; it will give thee a unique part in the universal song. --George Matheson.\r\nIs the midnight closing round you?\r\n\r\nAre the shadows dark and long?\r\nAsk Him to come close beside you,\r\nAnd He'll give you a new, sweet song. He'll give it and sing it with you;\r\nAnd when weakness lets it down, He'll take up the broken cadence, And blend it with His own.\r\nAnd many a rapturous minstrel Among those sons of light,\r\nWill say of His sweetest music \"I learned it in the night.\"\r\nAnd many a rolling anthem,    That fills the Father's home,   Sobbed out its first rehearsal,\r\nIn the shade of a darkened room.",1783499793071]